1791

1791 was the 1,791st year of the Common Era and the first year of the 1790s.

Events
1785
 * Death of Charles Gabriel Sebastien, Baron de l'Esperance, the Prefect of Saint Pierre and Miquelon under the Kingdom of France from 1773 to 1778.
 * Abolition of guilds in the Kingdom of the French and the creation of the semaphore, a precursor to the telegraph, also in France.
 * King Louis XVI of France, Queen Marie Antoinette of France, and Dauphin Louis are captured at Varennes while fleeing into the Austrian Netherlands in the "Flight to Varennes". The Champ de Mars Massacre follows on 17 July 1791 when royalist National Guard fire on unarmed republicans signing a petition to end the constitutional monarchy and create a French Republic.
 * Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, written by Olympe de Gouges, is adopted.
 * First American ship reaches Japan.